Viscosity in the escape-rate formalism

We apply the escape-rate formalism to compute the shear viscosity in terms of the chaotic properties of the underlying microscopic dynamics. A first passage problem is set up for the escape of the Helfand moment associated with viscosity out of an interval delimited by absorbing boundaries. At the microscopic level of description, the absorbing boundaries generate a fractal repeller. The fractal dimensions of this repeller are directly related to the shear viscosity and the Lyapunov exponent, which allows us to compute its values. We apply this method to the Bunimovich-Spohn minimal model of viscosity which is composed of two hard disks in elastic collision on a torus. These values are in excellent agreement with the values obtained by other methods such as the Green-Kubo and Einstein-Helfand formulas.Comment: 16 pages, 16 figures (accepted in Phys. Rev. E; October 2003

A multibaker map for shear flow and viscous heating

A consistent description of shear flow and the accompanied viscous heating as well the associated entropy balance is given in the framework of a deterministic dynamical system. A laminar shear flow is modeled by a Hamiltonian multibaker map which drives velocity and temperature fields. In an appropriate macroscopic limit one recovers the Navier-Stokes and heat conduction equations along with the associated entropy balance. This indicates that results of nonequilibrium thermodynamics can be described by means of an abstract, sufficiently chaotic and mixing dynamics. A thermostating algorithm can also be incorporated into this framework.Comment: 11 pages; RevTex with multicol+graphicx packages; eps-figure

Role of chaos for the validity of statistical mechanics laws: diffusion and conduction

Several years after the pioneering work by Fermi Pasta and Ulam, fundamental questions about the link between dynamical and statistical properties remain still open in modern statistical mechanics. Particularly controversial is the role of deterministic chaos for the validity and consistency of statistical approaches. This contribution reexamines such a debated issue taking inspiration from the problem of diffusion and heat conduction in deterministic systems. Is microscopic chaos a necessary ingredient to observe such macroscopic phenomena?Comment: Latex, 27 pages, 10 eps-figures. Proceedings of the Conference "FPU 50 years since" Rome 7-8 May 200